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Several readers submitted this story about layoffs at Linuxgruven. Some of them made allegations that Linuxgruven had bounced their last set of paychecks - we have no confirmation of this. We have previously run a story and a followup about a conflict between Linuxgruven and Sair - looks like that won't be a problem anymore.

Exactly. IBM gave an S/390 to Telia for free without any consultancy at all. Guess you can't make money with Linux. Since Intel and Cisco are laying off 5000 employees each you can't make money in CPUs and routers either.

I went to the last one and it was run by a guy from Linuxgruven. I don't remember his name, but he seemed like one of the higher-ups... It would be nice if their web page [stllinux.org] had this info on it, but it's so woefully out of date it isn't surprising. I think I'll have to go again to see what kind of spin he puts on this.

This is funny? Really. My company supplies equipment and leases space to Linuxgruven for their classes. Aaron up there has a wife and a child to support. Another person I know from Linuxgruven just moved here from Chicago, staying in a hotel with his family paid for by Linuxgruven. He was looking for a house. What's he gonna do now, move his family into a car? What's so funny about that?

On monday morning 15 people are going to show up at the door to my company expecting to be trained. Will there be anyone from Linuxgruven there to explain what's going on to them? Or are we going to have a riot on our hands? Then there are the afternoon and evening classes....
45 people who paid $2500 (or whatever) for training they're not going to get, expecting to work for a company that just let 100 employees go.... This is funny to you?

On top of all that, as I've stated before Linuxgruven has always paid their bills.... until now. They just ordered 100 machines from us for new offices they were planning to open. Thankfully they haven't been picked up yet, however we have to restock those parts to our vendors. If we're lucky we'll get a low 10% restocking fee. That's a large chunk of un-recoverable change for us to swallow.

I'm always amused how the people posting these daily Linux failures have to take some swipe at Microsoft. C'mon kids, the bitterness is a little obvious. I can't wait to see the ire directed at Microsoft by the editors/submitters here when VA Linux becomes a penny stock and they dump Slashdot.

I hope you get your wish, but after handling several calls from out of state instructors who were left mostly in the blue about state of affairs I can tell you there are no classes going on. If you are still contacted than I would highly suggest that you are better to spend the $2500.00 (And if you were quoted more than you should quote them this price) on books, coffee and a good desk to study, as these will help you more.

Aparently you did not bother to look at the web site before commenting that it is out of date. It was recently updated to include the synopsis for the presentation I will be giving, and everything on the front page is current.

Matthew Porter was the CEO of Linuxgruven until he resigned on Thursday. His volunteer work running the user group began before he was hired at Linuxgruven, and I would expect him to be there continuing in that effort. I don't think the meeting is the proper forum to discuss company matters in depth, but I am expecting my presentation to be on the short side as far as time available to me.

Craig Buchek

Disclaimer: I am a Linuxgruven employee, but I obviously do not speak for them.

That post is a criminal offense. It would qualify as a hit list, which has recently been found by the Supreme Court to be considered a threat. I hope Slashdot traces your IP address and you are prosecuted.

Not to mention the fact that that car is NOT a company car, but belongs to an employee who happened to like the company he worked for.

But the meeting information that you first mentioned is up-to-date on the front page.

I thought it was fairly clear that I know when the next meeting is. My beef is that the page contains almost no information about who is running the LUG. There is a tiny link stating "Chair: Matthew Porter" (that I missed before, my fault). But nothing else. Not who Matthew Porter is, not who the other officers might be. Not even how to contact the webmaster. Had I been an active member of the LUG I could fill in the gaps and send them on. I guess I should have sought out my local LUG before now, but I'm busy enough running my own business.

In any event, the people running LG have some 'splaining to do. St. Louis is a tiny, close-knit community of ~3 Million people. Word gets around. Business people tend not to do business with folks that have questionable backgrounds. I've been running my own tiny company for about 4 years now and it's clear even to me that the relationships within the StL business community can make or break you. It's probably like that most everywhere, but I've heard from others with businesses elsewhere that StL is especially parochial and close.

I am a Linuxgruven employee. I have a job. There were not 100 layoffs. If there had been I would not have a job. No one in my office has been laid off. So, for those that like rumors and news stories with absolutely no facts, no reporting, and no teeth, this is apparently your kind of story. I have been unable to find any supporting facts on several stories released by Slashdot. Posting stories based solely on general word of anybody seems to be a common practice of Slashdot. I highly recommend before putting any trust into these stories, you research your own facts. I'll stick with facts, and a company that has a great business plan. And we'll continue to be here, and be entertained by your comedy.

Follow the money: An operating system might cost $20 or $100 or $1000, but that is nothing compared to the cost for labor to set up a system, maintain it, and do something useful with it. Simple arithmetic conclusively proves that software is a relatively small cost for most businesses - they spend alot more for services, regardless of where the software came from. If businesses do 80% of the services in house, the market for consultants is still larger than the market for boxed software. Consulting is also a business that can be started on a shoe-string and scaled up, but trying to compete in the shrinkwrapped software market takes a big investment. Most businesses are attracted to the open source nature of Linux, its stability and security, not so much the price. The fact that Linux is free is something that appeals more to hobbyists, small business owners, academics, and third-worlders.

GNU/Linux isn't trying to repeal the laws of business; it is a different type of business strategy, where there is cooperation in a limited area (software design/distribution). Outside of that area, the market continues pretty much as usual. Most new businesses go under in the first few years, so the fact that some of the Linux companies are dropping is not a reason to assume that GNU/Linux is not viable.

I understand that some did have bounced paychecks. Mr. Hibbits has told me personally that the company will be making good on these. Let's be somewhat patient. Unfortunately, all of this happened on a Friday, which makes it very hard to get any information. My check did not bounce, and I have not been told not to be at work on Monday.

I also notice some pretty bad inconsistencies. That same page from icopyright has an option to "buy" the right to email the article (something like 20 cents per message), yet the website with the story has its own link to a "email the story", where I doubt (I haven't tried all the way to create an account) that they're going to charge you.

Seems to me that when the ship floundered it wasn't the cats that jumped of first. if you are an infant in business you believe new companies dont get i trouble whith faster than anticipated grouth. its not the dealing with success that make a true businessman,its the dealing with adversity. my money says these guys who started with nothing and had 2.8 million in sales their first year will bounce back with a plan that will give them 5-10 million their second year. dont bet on a loser who jumps ship when encountering thier first storm.

Alright, I'm blowing my mod points on this article, but I need to respond to this troll-ish post.

The St. Louis Business Journal is and has been a well-respected print publication in St. Louis for years. Just because their web site is moronic (they don't really publish it themselves, Microsoft bCentral [bcentral.com] should really take the blame) doesn't mean you must discredit the entire publication.

I have absolutely nothing to do with the SLBJ, aside from being a resident of St. Louis.

zsazsa (and to think I considered applying at Linuxgruven. I obvously would have refused to take their training course, though..)

What I want to figure out is a good synonym for "power cycler" which starts with the letters S and E. After all, Microsoft Certified Power Cycler probably comes closest to what one actually does. (I usually call them that anyways.)--

For every class I'd ever been to, only 1 in 6 were actually looking for a job. The rest were already employed, in the computer field in some manner or other. I'd say that maybe for half the info was directly job relevant, and the other half? You'd be surprised the number of places that send employees to training costing $$$$ for no reason other than it seems like the right thing to do.

I thought you meant info about Thrusday's meeting, not the group itself. And that's what I had just updated. You are right, the web page is terribly out-of-date. I'm working on getting an account to try to fix that. And we somehow lost our link to the "parent" organization: SLUUG (www.sluug.org). There's plenty off info there, but the Linux group is just a SIG of SLUUG, and our Linux SIG information is not so great.

We should take this discussion off-line. You can reach my via my URL above, or via my User Info page.

I just passed the second Linuxgruven test on Friday, about 3pm. It was business as usual at the Atlanta office, classes going on, testing, etc. Of course, that article was dated 17:30 EST, so maybe they canned everyone after I left. Who knows. But what concerns me is that I'm supposed to turn in paperwork to begin the hiring process on Monday. Will anyone be there to take the paperwork? If not, I guess I'll carry my happy ass on down to the court house, then right back home to start searching for a job (anyone hiring in Atlanta;)

I would go drown my sorrows in a few gallons of my favorite brew, not sure I can afford it now that it looks like my future job may be in jeopardy.

that the current linux-ese buisness model of selling support for free software is not going to work. Make fun of MS all you want, but they have 27billion in cash reserves and a very orthodox buisness strategy. Shrug.

Thank you. you have just proved how linuxgruven could get to the point of not making payrole. Unless it is grown fast it will come to a head.

As for the training materials. I may as well believe you. Hell I believed everyone else. I am not sure how I got the idea that the training material were the CEO's idea. I'm sorry I did not give the credit where it is due. How ever the out come is the same for me. I'm done. I'm hoping for maybe one call from linuxgruven. But no matter I'm out. Craig I have a lot of respect for you. Good Luck.

To be honest, after rereading my post I see my point wasn't very clear.My fault for posting at 4:00 in the morning or whenever. Anyway, the point i meant to make was that there are just.. ludicrious rumors flying around like this, and i really just want some solid answers.

It is with sincere regret that I write to inform you that due to certain financial exigencies, we must go through a restructuring period. This will entail possible layoffs. We are currently working to complete a round of financing, and hope the financial situation is temporary. Each employee will be notified individually of their employment status, as well as information regarding payroll. We are suspending operations at all of our locations immediately, until all effected employees can be notified.

Your financial position may be that you cannot wait for Linuxgruven's financial status to improve, to that end we have retained an outplacement firm to assist in a job search with another firm. That information will be provided at the time we contact you.

- James

I have the names and contact information of people that were in the calss with me. Most people paid 1/2 tuition ($1500) upfront, coincidentally we received 2 weeks instruction.

The instructor was poor, I doubt he would have been able to get certified for teaching, let alone as an LCA. I had six months experience working on SunOS 6 and was more knowledgable on command syntax than he was. He admitted this was his first teaching experience.

When I would presented the instructors with questions pertaining to the job assignments of people that had previously completed the course and passed the test, the reply was "None". I asked if it was safe to infer that all the Linuxgruven LCA'a working at the Chicago location were SAIR certified and I was told "Yes".

During the interview I inquired about the nature of my work assignment. What type of work assignments would I possibly be assigned to. What work location would I be assigned. The interviewer was unable to answer these questions. He responded that I probably would be presented with a variety of options, "Linuxgruven is growing, signing new contracts, opening more Linux Service/Training centers and expanding operations." He was not aware of actual work conditions and assignments for LCA's.

It's funny, how all of these corporate Linux companies thought they could make it. They each come out with a half-assed business plan, and go belly up in months.

Why don't we make a distinction, on Slashdot. We will refer to EVERY commercial linux company / distro as "Linux-dot-com" and every non-commercial distro or organization will simply be "Linux" or "Linux oriented."

This makes a lot more sense. With the rate at which all of these "revolutionary" Linux capitalists are going under, no one is going to want to invest in linux, and in turn, linux will not do well on the market place.

Linux [corporations] resembles dot-coms in every way, shape, and form. They have no plan, they pick up a copy of linux from kernel.org, get a post on slashdot about an IPO (which needs to stop, btw) and two weeks later, are on Yahoo about a Chapter 11. Ohh, this really looks great for Linux / Unix as a whole.

Linuxgruven.com hasn't been slowed by the market downturn
The year 2000 was a bad one for many young technology companies -- but not for Linuxgruven.com Inc. of Clayton.
Since it was founded last February, the Linux training and service company has grown to 106 employees from just two, said Linuxgruven.com chief executive Matthew Porter.

From the article

Linuxgruven.com lays off 100 employees

Does anyone think that had 106 employees spread out over 7 cities still plans to be in business after firing over 90 per cent of their work force?

You really must be a yellow streak coward. You are definitely a fool that jumps to conclusions. You do not even know to content of my story and you call it spam. Your stupidity led you to assume I was defending Linuxgruven.
There is another explaination. Maybe your defending Linuxgruven and this is way to stick your face further up one or both of the Linuxgruven's founders backsides. Why else would someone like you defend Linuxgruven's actions unless you are one of the founders.

Who ever this Micheal is, stated he cannot confirm bounced checks from LG should ask for confirmation. If he sends me his email address, I can send him a scanned copy of the check and a letter from my bank.
Growth was to fast in my opinion. To many people were opting to take the Sair test and many were passing We in Atlanta had 4-5 people ready to start work. We had no outside contacts or space in the office to accomindate to many more people. I new something had to change. I thought they would have to stop the "Train for Hire" program but they found another solution.
SURPRISE!! SURPRISE!!
I was in the Atlanta office. I paid for the class and took the class in October so I am srewed two ways. I passed the Linuxgruven tests which were a hell of a lot harder that the Sair tests. Only 16 people in the nation ever passwd the LG tests. I had started working last month. My March 2th paycheck bounced and the paycheck due today probally will not arrive but will also bounce if is does. There is "insufficient fund" in LG's bank account which I check every day. The same happened with 5 of the other 6 Atlanta employee. The one whose check did clear deposited if before noon that day.
The LG management in St. Louis called the building lease manager in Atlanta and had the locks removed while we were still in the office with students. They did not have the moral fotitude to inform the employees beforehand.
With the website statement that " no one has officially been laidoff" and the fact that Georgia Dept. of Labor says LG paid no unemployment tax no one can may be able to get unemployment.
The phone number (888-644-6545) the student were give to contact LG is not being answered. I have called every day, over a dozen times, but no answer. I wonder if the email address given to the students is accepting meassage or more importantly has anyone got a reply. It was James Hibbets email

I dunno. I got 14,000 from them before they tanked. they owe me four weeks work and 2500 for my classes, but all in all I did allright.:p If it was a scam only Jim or Mike knew for certain. And either one wasn't very smart about executing it then.

I would suggest you not get too fast on your returns. My understanding from St. Louis is that they will be pulling through this. They have not given any notice to the seven offices that are out of the St. Louis area about sending people home or not showing up to teach the class.

I passed my LCA also. I have 7 years of Linux experience, and passed all 4 tests in 15 days. I went into an interview, and got the exact same line. They told me that they would contact me within 3 days. It's been about 5 weeks. I just figured they didn't want me because I didn't pay them to train me... Even though they say they hire ANYONE with the right training. What a bunch of losers!!!

Count 'em up. I think I got about 196 listed at LWN's distro page [lwn.net] a month or two back. But, as you point out, there's a handful of major ones (Debian, Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake, Turbo), a few HW-specific ones (Yellow Dog, ARM), and a whole slew of special-purpose ones, as well as smaller dists.

I tend to think of these as tailored applications of Linux rather than fragmentation of the core distro.

Forget yellow journalism. These guys are just using a different financial method (totally legit!):

Business Dictionary for CS Graduates

profit: having cash in your hand that can be used to buy cool tech toys.

press release: an exciting fable that tells of a ficticious business with the same name as yours that's having outstanding success. Can be sent to a newswire, which is a press release receiving machine that sends more profit to your bank account, usually within a few hours. See dot-com ATM machine for further definition.

bankrupcy: 1. the condition of not having profit; 2. what your attorneys make you file for after you haven't paid employees for three months, have pilfered all the equipment and moved the customer accounts to your new business.

Okay. I'm getting the impression that there is VC out there looking to snatch up some LCA's. It would seem that more then one party is interested in starting a real company. I am going to assume that I'm getting this attention because my post got a rating of 5. The question that has come up 3 times is how many LCA can I muster up. Well I don't know that to be honest. But If you would sign up on the guest book on my personal webpage at www.mercybeat.com then they can see for them selves how many LCA's can be had on monday morning. Please LCA's only.

This is not a joke. But I make no promises. I'm still looking for a job and I'm not wanting to be a opertunist. I have not heard from anyone like IBM. So far these are just e-mails with persons that say VC is easy for a consulting company.

They way I see it their are customers for linux solutions and at least a hundred Linux Admin's that can start on monday for someone that can come up with the VC. Before we are forced to work Microsoft to eat.

We're really fucking pissed off. How do you think it would be to suddendly see a company you believe in go shooting down the toilet? TO be completley in the dark. Linuxgruven was what we did. I want to know what happened to the missing 250,000 dollars.. the three million so-and-so said he took home...I want to know who rang up a 7000$ phone bill.. why we never got any support accounts.. why the ball was dropped REPEATEDLEY. WHERE was the communication? What's the point of stranding people...? Having a sales force that doesn't know what the product really is.. ? Using Microsoft OSes for the employees too green to switch to linux.. ? TO my knowledge, even the CEO, the president of the St. Louis LInux SIG was using Windows primarily.
I feel extremley violated.

I called the 888 number for their Customer Service Center, 13:15EST, and there was no answer.

I'm guessing if you're using 'em, your SOL.

It's a shame that, if a company is going to fail, they don't do it gracefully.... you'd think that was the LEAST they could do, esp. if they were mis-managed... but, I guess if they were mis-managed, the wouldn't terminate gracefully...

I suppose what is really funny is the iCopyright.com is using a freely available hierarchy like navigation menu "hierMenus" with the copyright removed. How is that for irony. Check out the source, there is not mention of where they originally got the script.

Yeah, I agree with you.
What I want to know is how St. Louis could have the demand for _200_ new system administrators _every_ month. I guess that a whole bunch of mid-westerly IT companies thought that it could be interesting to use Linux for some parts of their IT subsystem (mail gateway, firewall, print servers, web proxy, web server even) and got themselves a Linux admin. And then that was saturation, noone else to train, no market, no economic want to satisfy. ooops, 100 jobs down the drain. I bet you their expansion plans were non-existant.

And what office is it that you work in? What was your name again? Not gonna say? Didn't think so...
Here's a fact for you -I- have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing today, neither Lebb nor Hibbits has contacted me to let me know, as it said they would in the internal email to all employees( Which as a side note came out Sunday ).

Though my last check hasn't bounced( yet, to my understanding it still can ), I'm still waiting for some sort of communication verifying anything from those two. So you keep right on going to work there friend, we'll see if your tune changes on Friday when your supposed to get your paycheck.

I'm sorry to hear of the layoffs at Linuxgruven. However, our non-dotcom St. Louis based company is growing our Unix environment and we need some help.

My group has just gotten approval to hire a couple of Unix/AIX sysadmins, and I am looking for people with solid Unix skills. (If you're good, we can train you in whatever technology you need to know).

We're part of a large company, and I am introducing lots of Opensource technologies into our architecture. My personal interests lie in Unix security (SSH/Kerberos/LDAP), but we also have Oracle, WebSphere, Java, MQ and clustered systems. If I had the time, I'd also like to roll out PHP and Jabber internally.

Please send me email to steve at borrelli.org and I will see if we can set up an interview.

OK, I work(ed) for Linuxgruven, but am posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

There are 2 issues involved, only one of which has been mentioned here. First, there is the issue of the company running out of money. That seems to be true, but they had just secured Venture Capital on monday.

The second issue is the fact that *all* the executives resigned on thursday. Apparently, they took the VC money with them. That's why the employees aren't getting paid. That is also why the owners sent everyone home on friday. They have no management team and possbily no money. That makes it hard to run a company.

The article at the St. Louis Business Journal is quite suspicious. Many of the obvious facts are wrong. It is common knowledge that the company is in 8 cities, not 7. And it is obvious that if you lay off everyone but 6 people, but have 7 cities, that lay-offs had to have taken place in other cities. I suspect that the "sources" are the former Linuxgruven management trying to spread a little FUD.

Of course it sucks that there are incompatible libraries, and different installation/package tools, but that's being improved upon. The fact is that today's linux distributions have *more* in common than they did when linux first got started (when 100 different people were each rolling their own). And stuff like ximian is ensuring that even the user apps are compatible (but come on folks, don't neglect Slack!). So there you go. Of course a better troll would be to compare linux and *bsd, or linux and nt, but that's my style so I'm biased. And an even better troll would be to post a link to this [yahoo.com] and to this [slashdot.org]. I might make even that my sig.

I doubt anyone who was here when during that last mess with Linuxgruven on Slashdot is surprised by this. Honestly, posting fake testimonials about their company is not the sign of a thriving business.

I doubt that lawsuit is going to get anywhere, it sounds like they're tapped out of cash.

We've already been asked by James Hibbits, Company "Visionary", to return said parts. Some of which were drop shipped to LG. They may or may not "pull through this" but the fact remains that we have to return a lot of parts, some of which we have no idea where they are. I hope they do pull through this, though IMO they'd better change their business plan and company name to avoid being blacklisted by the Linux and St. Louis business communities.

Ok, so if I lie to you and promise you wonderful things and don't deliver it's your fault, right?

Give me all the money you have in all your bank accounts and I promise I'll triple it in a month and give it back.

As I'm sure you're aware, Redhat != Linux, and kernel.org doesn't care, nor do they have the procedures in place to check, what happens to the Linux kernel source after they release it.

Those people you refer to are real people. People with children, bills and a willingness to hope for a better future. They were offered an opportunity to have a decent paying job if they passed some tests. They are not at fault. Not anymore than senior citizens who were fucked by Publishers Clearing House or Readers Digest.

I used to be arrogant, thinking I was smarter than everyone around me, thinking I was justified in feeling superior because I was demonstratably superior. Reality check: I still had to deal with everyone I had previously dismissed as inferior. I came to grips to the fact that everyone has different strengths.

You, my friend, are displaying arrogance in that you seem to think that these people are at fault because they believe what they were told and they shouldn't have. If that's the case then we should all build ourselves shelters, stock them with Twinkies (ptang, frink frink!) and shoot anyone outside our circles as they approach.

Ultimately, I must disagree. These people are not at fault. These people were promised things that were not delivered. Though some prudence is warrented and, no, people shouldn't jump into things without some investigation, you can't hold them accountable when some company promises something and then bails.

Actually, an acquaintance of mine passed the MCSE. Being the curious bastard I was, I asked him what they told him to do if a machine bluescreened. I figured that maybe they teach a magic procedure to make sense of the numbers that are displayed, or maybe an e-mail address to submit them to. Nope. The simple answer was:

The CEO started the new training docs and was the one that said they would be opensource.

I was hired by the owner to create those new training docs long before Matthew Porter was made CEO. I had found a page where James Hibbits had announced that they were going to be open-sourced, but I can't find it at the moment. I believe that was before Matthew Porter or I even worked for the company.

Have you done the numbers? if you have 100 people paying 3150 dollars in one month but you only hire 1 out of every 20 then you should not have to depend on a VC check the day of payrole.

I will attempt to run the numbers for our viewers. 200 students (a high estimate) times $2500 (the new price) = $500,000 revenue a month (maximum). 106 employees times $4500 a month (a low estimate of $54K a year -- higher than the advertised $45K, but some people obviously make more than that, and you have to figure in insurance and employers' portion of taxes) = $477,000 labor (minimum). That leaves $23,000 (maximum) a month for rent on (by my count) 20 offices. I can gurantee you that rent averages more than $1000 a month. Did you want electricity with that? How about computers?

Now re-do the math with 80 employees. That saves you $117,000 a month, giving you a much better chance of being back in the black.

So at a minimum, you need to have 2 students in class for every person you hire (2*$2500 > $4500). From the numbers I have seen, there were about 106 employees and between 150 and 200 students. That doesn't cut it. And correct me if I'm wrong, but if you keep each employee for 12 months, you'd only be able to hire 1 out of 24 students or else the numbers start going exponential. (Or am I just tired?)

Disclaimer: All numbers are available in the public record. I do/did work for Linuxgruven, but this math was not sanctioned by them.

I love how James sent it from Rich's account so Rich would take most of the flack instead. Very professional arse covering, if I do say so myself.
Notice the usage of Rich's full name, but the lack of James Hibbits's last name, as well. Perhaps James Hibbits is hoping people somehow think that "James" is a nickname for Rich. Any further opinions?

The "St. Louis Business Journal" Article that
Slashdot points to has a
link [icopyright.com]
at the botton labelled "Click for permission to reprint",
and the page that it takes you to claims to be able to charge $5 for the right to link, as if copyright could restrict that. As I see it, this makes the "St. Louis Business Journal" a scam intended to take advantage of people who don't understand copyright and fair use, and, therefore, not a trustable source of news.

It's only social pressure, but I would like to recommend that slashdot label unconfirmed "St. Louis Business Journal" stories as rumour, since their misleading statements about copyright show that publication by the "St. Louis Business Journal" does not make it particularly likely that a statement is true. Also, keeping the "St. Louis Business Journal" in quotation marks helps make it clear that that site is not acknowledged as the journal of record for business in St. Louis.

I was Senior Systems Developer at Linuxgruven. I was working on internal projects when I got the axe. And here is what I know.

Yes it's a scam. The fact is that they count on people not passing the LCA. They do this by promising people that have no chance of becoming a Linux admin. Most of the time these are people that can't even use windows computers.

The owners ( James and Mike ) write checks out of the company's bank account. The reason everyone is fired is because the owners took a vacation and spent their paycheck.

Right before this happened everyone at linuxgruven was forced to sign a non-discloser agreement so that people would be afraid to speak out about what was about to happen. ( LG can fook off because I did not sign S#1t.

Everyone that was above me knew how the bussiness worked and chose to ignore it because they were getting great titles and pay.

I found out a month ago and started looking into the training materials. The instructors were top notch but the materials were so bad that I would not suggest them to be used as heating fuel. I see no possible way for people to study anything from the training materials.

In the beginning it looked like a real company. I was seperated from the rest of the company and told that support contracts for services were piling up. It was not till I went to the call center and saw everyone fooking around that I supected that it was the training classes that were the only form of income. Other then me. I was billed out for 170+ hour and got screwed out of my bonus for those jobs. Which by the way my bonuses were supposed to be in this coming fridays check.

I strongly suggest that people stay away from linuxgruven. I have been told personally by the owners that they will continue the training classes and look to other citys to make up for St.Louis.

Don't feel sorry for me. feel sorry for all the guys that thought they were getting a break. A chance to work with linux and get a real good pay concidering how much they knew. Instead these guys got screwed out of pay and the bills are coming fast for them.

The fact is that there was only one real admin job that linuxgruven had, and only one person did that job. The rest were sitting around waiting for people that wanted interviews.

This is a company to stay away from... If anyone wants to contact me they can do so though my home page www.mercybeat.com ( i'm mercybeat ).

There was some good work going on at Linuxgruven... there was a team that was working on creating real training materials that were to be released opensource.

My last advice to linuxgruven employees. Go to the courts and file a personal small claim against the company. If your in st.louis contact me and i'll tell you all about it. Or you can meet me in clayton monday morning and file with me.

I would still like to work for a linux professional services company if anyone has a job for a java programmer with 5 years or real linux experiance.

Damon C. Richardson
mercybeat@earthlink.net

P.S. Once again I have signed nothing at linuxgruven and I can say what ever i want to who ever I want.